Travel, Food, and Living Italian

Tortellini en Brodo

The highlight of our holiday cooking was homemade tortellini en brodo! I used Biba Caggiano's recipe for the broth and filling (but my standard perfect pasta dough from Rafaella in Bologna). It was wonderful! I have two large tubs of broth and 160 tortellini in the freezer! YUM!

To make the broth, throw everything into a large stock pot except the salt. Cover with 20 cups of water. Partially cover the pot, and bring to a boil. Skim off any foam.
Reduce heat to low, partially cover, and simmer for 2 1/2 hours. Add salt during last few minutes of cooking. Remove all solids. Strain broth through a fine mesh strainer into a large bowl. Clean strainer, and line with cheesecloth, or a clean kitchen towel, or even paper towels. Strain into another large bowl. Transfer to storage containers and refrigerate over night. The next day, remove any fat from broth. May be refrigerated if using in the next 2 days, or freeze for up to 3 months.

Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat.Add pork, and cook, stirring, until lightly golden (about 4 min.). Increase heat to high and add wine. Stir until wine is almost evaporated (3-5 min.) Let cool slightly.

Transfer pork and juices to bowl of a food processor. Add prosciutto and mortadella and pulse until mixture is finely chopped (but not pureed).

Transfer filling to a medium bowl and add egg, parmigiano, nutmeg and salt. Mix well. Mixture should be moist and just a little sticky. Cover and refrigerate untill ready to stuff tortellini (up to 2 days).

Make pasta dough and stuff tortellini.

Cut pasta sheets into 1 1/2" squares. Place 1/8 t. of filling on each square.

Fold in half diagonally into a triangle. Pick up triangle and press around edges to seal. Wrap tortellino around your index finger, overlapping opposite corners and pressing. Line up tortellini on a kitchen towel.

To freeze, fill a baking sheet with tortellini (not touching). Freeze. Then fill ziplock bags with batches of tortellini.

To Serve:

14-15 tortellini per serving with 1 1/2 c. brodo.

Bring brodo to a boil over medium heat. Drop in tortellini. Cook approximately 3 minutes when they are all floating. (4-5 min. if frozen) Ladle tortellini and broth into serving bowls, sprinkle with freshly grated parmigiano, and serve immediately.